Empie, Hal H., 1909-

Pharmacist, artist and art teacher.

From the description of Hal Empie collection, 1950-1987. (Scottsdale Public Library). WorldCat record id: 24166737

Hart Haller "Hal" Empie (1909-2002) was an American cartoonist, illustrator, painter, and pharmacist.

Hal Empie was born outside of Safford, Arizona Territory on March 26, 1909. In 1920, Empie and his family moved to Safford proper where his parents opened a hotel. As a teenager, Empie went to work as an assistant in a drug store. He held this job until he went to study medicine at the University of Arizona in 1927. Empie left the university to get married but became a licensed pharmacist at age 20 after attending the Capitol College of Pharmacy in Denver. Empie is said to have been the youngest licensed pharmacist in Arizona history.

After working for a few years in Solomonville, Arizona and suffering financial setbacks, Empie began to pursue art for extra income and in 1934 Empie moved to Duncan, Arizona to become a drugstore manager. Several years later Empie took over ownership of the store and renamed it the Art Gallery Drug which he would run for the next 50 years while he continued to work as an artist on the side.

Empie depicted life in Arizona in its earliest decades of statehood both in caricature and in landscape paintings. In the 1930s, Empie began producing Western-themed cartoon postcards through Empie Kartoon Kards. But Empie turned his focus to his love of oil painting and Empie worked to promote the creation of Arizona related art by Arizona artists.

Empie left Duncan and closed the Art Gallery Drug and moved to Tubac, Arizona in the 1980s where he opened the Hal Empie Studio & Gallery. In the late 1990s, Empie’s eyesight began to deteriorate but he adapted his tools and techniques so he could continue to paint. Empie, a prolific painter, began selling his paintings as a teenager and was primarily a self-taught artist aside from a few weeks of art courses in the early 1950s.

Empie’s life and work has been profiled in numerous publications and exhibited at regional galleries as well at the Tucson Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. A biography of Empie, Arizona's Hal Empie, His Life, His Times and His Art was published by the Arizona Historical Foundation in 2001 with a foreword by Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

Hal Empie died on March 26, 2002.

From the guide to the Hal H. Empie Papers, 1937-1986, (Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries)